Caregiving Archive

Excess gas can be annoying, but is it cause for concern?

Gas is a normal — yet embarrassing — part of digestion. "We're all pretty gassy as individuals," says Dr. Kyle Staller, a gastroenterologist with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

In fact, the average person produces between 1/2 and 1 liter of gas every day and passes gas about 10 to 20 times. "While people may not like it when they do it, especially at inappropriate times, it's just a sign of a regular, healthy digestive system at work," says Dr. Staller.

How many daily calories do you really need? It depends on many factors.

When it comes to nutrition, calories embody the ultimate love-hate relationship. Consume too little, and you don't have the energy to function at your best. Eat too much, and you risk weight gain. It's no surprise, then, that counting calories can be such an obsession.

But how much do you really need every day? Unfortunately, there is not a single, simple answer. Men ages 50 and older require 2,000 to 2,800 calories per day, or an average of about 2,500, says Dr. Qi Sun, associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Many conditions can affect your memory and thinking.

Dementia, Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment. These terms are often mentioned together to describe age-related memory loss. While they are linked in some ways, they are not necessarily the same, and they often affect people differently.

"Even though memory loss is more common as you age, it is not part of normal aging," says Dr. Gad Marshall, associate medical director of the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. "Either sudden or gradual persistent changes in memory loss and mental lapses can be signs of more serious conditions."

Resistance bands offer an easy way to get an all-around strength workout at home.

They are cheap and lightweight. They travel well, and you can do almost any kind of muscle-strengthening exercise with them. They are giant rubber bands known as resistance bands, and they should be part of every man's exercise toolbox.

"Whether you need to focus on specific areas or need to better control exercise resistance — like when recovering from an injury or dealing with joint pain — bands offer something for almost anyone, no matter his physical health, limitations, or fitness goals," says physical therapist Shawn Pedicini with Harvard-affiliated Spaulding Rehabilitation Network.

In the journals

Even if you believe you're in excellent health, you could still be at risk for a heart attack or stroke, suggests a study of more than 6,800 people, average age 62, published Feb. 15, 2019, in JAMA Network Open. At the study's beginning, participants rated their health as excellent, very good, good, or poor/fair. (More than half the men reported being in very good or excellent health.)

Next, everyone had a coronary artery calcium (CAC) scan, which detects plaque buildup in the arteries of the heart. The scores range from zero to 100 and higher, with zero meaning no plaque buildup is present and cardio-vascular disease risk is at its lowest.

In the journals

Another way to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels? Eat more soy protein, suggests a study published online April 22, 2019, by The Journal of Nutrition.

Researchers examined 43 trials to evaluate the effect soy had on LDL levels. (High LDL levels can lead to a buildup of cholesterol in arteries and increase a person's risk of cardiovascular disease.)

Taking your pills with a light snack or at bedtime may help reduce the nausea.

You take medication hoping it will make you feel better. But sometimes it makes you feel worse. "Nausea is one of the most common side effects of medications we hear about," says Joanne Doyle Petrongolo, a pharmacist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

About nausea

Nausea is a queasy feeling in your stomach — you may feel seasick, or you may feel you're about to vomit. Medications that commonly cause nausea as a side effect include antibiotics, such as erythromycin (Erythrocin); aspirin; nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) or naproxen (Aleve); and some blood pressure drugs, such as the calcium-channel blocker nifedipine (Nifedical, Procardia).

How a healthy lifestyle can make a difference in Alzheimer’s prevention.

Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is characterized by the accumulation of two types of protein in the brain: tangles (tau) and plaques (amyloid-beta). Eventually, Alzheimer's kills brain cells and takes people's lives.

Alzheimer’s causes

What causes Alzheimer's? We still aren't sure. "For 1% of all cases, there are three genes that determine definitively whether or not you will have Alzheimer's, and all three relate to amyloid-beta production, which in these cases is likely the cause of Alzheimer's," says Dr. Gad Marshall, associate medical director of clinical trials at the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. "For the other 99%, amyloid and tau are closely associated with Alzheimer's, but many things may contribute to the development of symptoms, such as inflammation in the brain, vascular risk factors, and lifestyle."

A bad night's sleep can leave you feeling pretty tired the next day. Put a string of those together and nagging fatigue starts to set in.

Getting good sleep, in the right amount, can make a big difference in how you feel. Too little or too much sleep can increase your perception of fatigue. And even if you get enough hours of sleep, you might find yourself dragging the next day if that sleep was interrupted by frequent awakenings or was of poor quality.

There's no mercury to worry about, and flaxseed oil  does contain omega-3 fats...but not the best kind.

Troll the medical literature, and you'll come up with study after study showing that fish and fish oil are good for us, especially for our hearts but maybe also for our moods and immune systems. Various epidemiologic investigations have found that people who eat fish regularly are less likely to have heart attacks, suffer strokes, or die from sudden cardiac arrest. The definition of "regularly" varies, but it usually means at least a couple of times a week, although eating fish even once a month has been shown to make a difference.

Fish, and especially fish oil, have also been the subject of dozens of randomized clinical trials, most involving people with existing heart conditions. In large amounts (several grams a day), fish oil has been shown to nudge various cardiac risk factors ("good" HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure) in the right direction.